Save the delivery guy, save the world

Be nice to the pizza delivery guy. It’s simple, but it just might save your life. The “Be Cool to the Pizza Dude” philosophy, coined by Sarah Adams, was something we read for my INTS class last year. It’s a practice in humility and forgiveness, empathy and equality. In a society that seems to become more like the plot of George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” every day, the “Be Cool to the Pizza Dude” philosophy is something definitely worth evaluating and applying to life, if only to maintain the very characteristics that make us human.

Perhaps you won’t get hit by a bus after snubbing the delivery guy of his well deserved tip. Maybe you won’t catch a cold because you subtweeted about someone in your circle of friends and it wasn’t super friendly. Whether you believe in karma, divine retribution or what-have-you, there’s something to be said for treating people with kindness and equality… it’s the art of being a decent human.

Facebook and Twitter, along with the endless spectrum of other social media sites have become practically inescapable. With a few key strokes, it’s easy to know everything about someone – what they’re doing, who they’re friends with, their high score on SongPop.
I live in fear of people becoming so involved in the world of social media, so concerned with what everyone else is doing. With this constant access to the Internet, it’s incredibly easy to constantly compare ourselves or feel left out or envious when we see someone’s photo on Instagram. It’s easy to channel these feelings into talking about said person behind their back, sometimes leading to us becoming invested where it’s not our place to be invested. This is the moment in which you’ve got to dig deep and muster the “peace and blessings,” the Beatles loving hippie inside us all and feel your feelings, talk it out, and let it go.

If you don’t like someone, it’s cool. Safely said, it’s virtually impossible to like everyone you meet; anyone who says differently is selling something. The key is to let things go; nothing is truly gained by professing your dislike across the social media spectrum.
The classic song “High School Never Ends” by Bowling for Soup seems to be the perfect anthem for the way social media is warping the way our generation behaves; the song is awesome, but it doesn’t have to be this way. High school is really a state of mind – you can leave whenever you’d like. Our lives don’t have to be bound by our high school experience: the bullying, the bathroom gossip wall, the cliques. These things certainly have the potential to define our existence, but only if we give them the power.

It’s been said that it’s the little things in life that really count. There’s something about the little things like saying ‘please’ to the barista when you order your venti double mocha Frappuchino, there’s something about being cool to the pizza delivery dude and there’s something about taking the high road when the potential for a dramatic situation arises. In the grand scheme of life, it’s the things like loving one another, practicing kindness, understanding and accepting those for who they are, that turn out to be pretty monumental. And just may be, our chance to save the world.